Monday, December 01, 2014

Unfortunately it's not just anti-gay groups and spokespeople who will lie about the lgbt community and situations concerning us.

Other conservatives sometimes jump in with tactics and omissions as noxious as that of groups such as the Family Research Council or the National Organization for Marriage. Last week, Fox News personality (I refuse to call him a journalist) and blogmaster of the site Red State, Erick Erickson raised the alarm about a controversy in Atalanta:

According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle,

Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran is suspended for one
month without pay after publishing a book that says homosexuality and
having multiple sexual partners is “vile,” “vulgar”, and
“inappropriate”.

The 162-page paperback titled “Who Told You That You Were Naked?” is being sold at Amazon.com.

. . . Chief Cochran is an evangelical Christian who has not shied away from
his faith in the past. He left the Atlanta Fire Department to take a
job in the Obama Administration. He returned, however, to the city he
loves to head its Fire Department. But the gay mafia is loudly
complaining that Chief Cochran, by writing this book, will suddenly now
not put out the fires of gay homes, or something like that.

Specifically, the accusation is that by being honest about his
orthodox Christian views on sex and marriage, Chief Cochran is
undermining the public trust in him. You’d think the government would
appreciate Kelvin Cochran being a role model to young black men in
Atlanta, but they are instead much more focused on not offending the gay
rights community.

What Mayor Reed and the gay rights community are saying is that if
you work for government you cannot be open about your Christian faith.
Again, you will be made to care.

That "you will be made to care" phrase is one Erickson coined a while back. It's his way of claiming that marriage equality will cause people's rights to be compromised.

It's a ridiculous theory, much like Erickson's rendition of Cochran's story. For one thing, he is being extremely flippant of Cochran's claim about lgbts. The man is a public servant and, like it or not, lgbts are members of the public. We have a right to get angry when it is discovered that someone paid to serve us has such an awful view of our community. Would Mr. Erickson defend police officers who were fired for being members of the Ku Klux Klan?

In the book based on Christian values,
Cochran identifies himself as Atlanta's fire chief and says his first
priority as chief is to run the department "to cultivate its culture to
the glory of God."He also has critical views on homosexuality, at one point equating it to bestiality.City officials say Cochran violated city policy by publishing a book without permission."One
of the most alarming things is that we did not know about the book
when it was published," city spokeswoman Anne Torres said.City officials want to know how often Cochran distributed the book at work to colleagues.

To recap: Cochran involved his place of employment in the book, claimed that his first priority in his job was a religious one (instead of keeping the community safe), and there is a strong possibility that he may have distributed the book to subordinates.In other words, this is not a case of Cochran being discriminated or targeted by some fictional "gay mafia." Instead it is a case of Cochran being merely suspended while an investigation is underway to see whether or not he violated rules regarding his employment.If anyone is "made to care" about the situation, then the fault lies solely with Cochran. Any idea that the lgbt community should roll over and be disrespected or that Cochran's faith gives an exemption from rules everyone must follow is simply ridiculous.

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About Me

Alvin McEwen is 45-year-old African-American gay man who resides in Columbia, SC.
McEwen's blog, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, and writings have been mentioned by Americablog.com, Goodasyou.org, People for the American Way, PageOneQ.com, The Washington Post, Raw Story, The Advocate, Media Matters for America, Crooksandliars.com, Thinkprogress.org, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, Melissa Harris-Perry, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Washington Blade, and Foxnews.com.
In addition, he is also a past contributor to Pam's House Blend,Justice For All, LGBTQ Nation, and Alternet.org. He is a present contributor to the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post,
He is the 2007 recipient of the Harriet Daniels Hancock Volunteer of the Year Award and the 2010 recipient of the Order of the Pink Palmetto from the SC Pride Movement as well as the 2009 recipient of the Audre Lorde/James Baldwin Civil Rights Activist Award from SC Black Pride. In addition, he is a three-time nominee of the Ed Madden Media Advocacy Award from SC Pride.